Conservatarian shared this:
“Not to brag, but my first car was a Chevy Vega. And not just the sedan. The 2-door station wagon baby!”
. . . .Which got me thinking.
What was the first car you bought — really bought, and did not inherit?
(I only qualify it thus, because I personally went through numerous hand-me-downs, before I bought one with my own cash.)
I am not sure. My memory conflates different cars. I think it was a tan, 2-door, hatchback Honda Accord, manual 5-speed. What a glorious thing for a high-school(?) or college (?) guy to have! Independence! But I also had a green Bug around the same era. $500 bucks it cost me. What an un-Biden time it was!
What do you credit as being your first car?
My $350 1967 VW bug beats yours. I’d say I definitely got $350 worth of use out of it. The entire car was an oil filter. Add a quart on Monday and you had a quart on the driveway by Sunday. One Monday I forgot to add the oil. Then I got the red light that says “You need another car.”
1975 Toyota Sport Truck with the 5 speed. I replaced my 1967 VW bug which had close to 200k on it.
1970 Ford Fairlane 302 2 door fastback no power steering automatic on the column. Bench front seat for the chics.
1949 International pickup bought for $175 in 1976. Natural rust color, 8v electrical system, driver’s side door was permanently bungied to the steering column, fenders sounded like a propane tank when thumped, had a granny gear that could get it out of anything. I loved that truck…
Mustang II, in a greenish Yellow, for $500. I was already 26, way old for a Jersey boy, but I was living in San Francisco. It immediately broke down and needed a new transmission. Radiator blew the day before we were set to drive back to the east coast. Threw a rod outside of Memphis and we cooled our heels in Brownsville for a week. Died for good in Queens. I pulled off the VIN’s and abandoned it around the corner from our apartment, but someone saw value in it because it was gone in a week. Super comfortable, had a bucket seat that was like sitting in the palm of God’s hand.
Trump, from Queens, got it. Trump got it. Trump got it. It’s all Trumps fault.
1972 Mercury Montego, metallic brown with gold stripes and velour seats, costing about $600. The rear speaker deck shredded when I installed a beefier sound system, so I hand-tailored a solid wood one. Drove it for years until some 18-year-old driving a brand-new Toyota pick-up made a left turn right in front of me and slowed down when he realized what he had done – woulda missed him if he goosed it…
I had one of those. It had a 460 V8. You had to shut it off at the gas pump or it would never get full.
1975 Chevy C-10, 2-wheel drive, short bed, regular cab, heavy half ton. Ran on 7 cylinders and had 3/4 ton front springs in it when we got it, so the front was higher than the back and it rode like a cinder block. Dad paid $1500 for it when I was 15, and we fixed it up and I used it to drive to work until I had earned enough to pay him back for it (and the upgrades), $4k. Senior year of high school, it was sky blue with white stripes on the side, drivers door was brown with tan, and passenger door was green with light green. Still have it. Dad (who owns a custom paint shop) said my HS graduation present was a paint job. Graduated in 2001. Still haven’t gotten my paint job. My mom, brother, and sister-in-law all took turns drag racing it until the track got shut down last year.
A 1960 Studebaker Lark …. $350
(wow, that is so embarrassing)
Gold ’72 Malibu wagon that someone had shoehorned a 454 into. Bought it with my armor enlistment bonus and drove to my first assignment at Ft Hood, mid ’75. Saw the Hurst shifter on the floor and was in love.
Driving home to VA prior to PCSing to WG had 4 flat tires during the trip and wound up with 4 different size tires on it. That was a challenging drive TX to VA. Told dad he could sell it and keep what he got for it. Never did tell me what it sold for. Besides tires had to replace water pump and that was it besides oil, filters and suchlike. over 4 yrs.
You must have looked like the Blues Brothers on a mission from God.
I was just glad dad rescued me in Roanoke, VA. The 4 tires had exhausted my leave money a week before my next payday. Then I got married and financial sanity ensured, dammit.
Sad commentary for a has-been M1 master gunner who could take down multi-million dollar fire control and make it dance. Hint: I was trained to do it, the car, not so much.
A polar white ’79 Datsun King Cab. that extra 18″ of space behind the seats seemed huge. Got it in 1984 for $2k….fun little truck
1967 red Chevrolet pickup with stepside box. Purchased for $450 and sold it a year later for $500.
Then a 1971 for a year.
Then a 1974 3/4 ton that was two years old. Lasted 28 days..black ice…wrapped around a Bell telephone pole..4 cement patio slabs came forward and crushed cab. Climbed out the now open back window with dislocated shoulder. Told by insurance no collision on it as never had collision on other trucks. Got out of hospital day 29 and made first payment on a truck that was gone..
Billed $82 for the telephone pole…eventually everything paid off…
If it weren’t for bad luck you wouldn’t have any luck at all.
1972 Ford Custom. $1 from my Grandma, does that count? Thing could house an illegal immigrant family. I did have to stick a screw driver in the carburetor to get it enough air to start. The gas gauge went down to half full, and stayed there. I might have been getting great gas mileage but I filled up just in case. It finally died in a parking space on the streets of Boston. Couldn’t get it to start. Then I moved and kept getting parking tickets for it which I never payed. I assume it got towed at some point. That was the late 1980s. Didn’t buy my own car again until 2006, a Saturn Vue. That would probably make it my first true car. Kept it until this past year when I finally decided to get a newer car. When I sold it it had only 60,000 miles on it. Ran fine and I probably could have kept going but it was starting get more small fixes that were adding up. I did want a newer car before they outlaw new ICE vehicles.
1960 Dodge Phoenix. Slant six. Push button transmission.
Steering wheel could have doubled as a wagon wheel. Front bench seat could seat four. Bought it for $200.00,drove it for a year and a half and had to sell it before leaving for basic training. After returning from the Army,, the girl who bought it was still driving it. We both got our money’s worth.
1962 Ford Galaxy, with the 223 6cyl and the 2 speed Ford-o-Matic. I was 16 and I paid $175 for it. It couldn’t pull the skin off pudding. My Dad said it was the perfect car, because if I ever got a speeding ticket, I couldn’t say it was an accident. But, my next car was a 1965 Ford Falcon Convertible. That was a car that a girl might actually ride in.
Old man had a 65 Galaxie. On long car trips I’d be in the back throwing playing cards out the hole in the floor boards to watch them tumble down the highway.
My first car was a 91 Jetta GL used. 5 speed. Learned how to drive a stick driving it off the lot. Took me a week to find 5th. Couldn’t figure out why it was screaming down the highway at 5 grand going only 55….
First car I bought new from a dealer was an 02 S10 crew cab. Still have that truck in my garage waiting for a resto. Blew up the sun shield in the tranny ripping railroad ties out of a landscaping wall.
The second car I bought was on ’03 S-10 ZR2. Got it usd but with only 5k miles on it. Bare bones interior, cloth, roll up windows, manual locks. It did have AC and cruise control. 4.3 V-6 and a 5 speed stick, extended cab. Loved that truck. Traded it in back in ’15 for something that could carry two kids. It only 60k miles on it, mint, except the 1-2 synchros were fried. One of the dumbest things I’ve done. I loved that truck.
1972 Pontiac Catalina. Pine green. Hole rusted through the rear left quarter panel so you could reach in and grab a beer from the cooler in the trunk. Holes in the floorboards so the car filled with dust driving down the gravel roads. Put a new alternator in for $50. Alignment so out of whack that the front end hopped up and down at 55 mph. Also no A/C in south Florida.
1978 Chevrolet Chevette, $112 monthly payment. Apollo 11 got to the moon faster than that car went from 0-60. Little kids on tricycles would point and laugh as they passed me on the road. Maintenance was routine over its life, that was good, sold it after 8 years and 53,000 miles. Was actually fairly dependable except for its lack of acceleration. Was never worried that it would be stolen.
If I can’t count the ‘67 Mustang my uncle bought me (and two other uncles put brakes on in our garage and I paid my cousins to paint and put carpet in), then it’s the 1976 Monte Carlo that I bought from a man down the road. It had more acceleration that the 200-in straight six in the Mustang that was bolted to an auto trans. Had to put a used 305 in the Monte Carlo when the timing chain broke crossing US 301 in Wilson. Kept it till I was in Basic. Ordered a new Mustang from a local dealer on leave. Folks drove it to Alabama about six weeks later.
My mom’s first car was a 64.5
https://www.tomlaferriere.com/listings/1964-12-ford-mustang-coupe/
Might be exactly that one for all I know. My dad was driving it to work one day and the drive shaft fell out on the highway. A following truck promptly turned it into a taco. They parked it with the taco in the back seat for a decade.
The day I turned 16 my father sold it for a dollar to a coworker. I was pissed, but he probably saved my life. Who knows?
I don’t remember the year of the truck but, a old brown Chevy C-10 suburban style i bought from one of my partners from the ambulance company I worked for. He used to drive us into work from our boondock town daily in it. He up graded and offered me the truck cheap after a few months.
I owned the truck 2 weeks before I realized, when going to put something in the back seat, that there was no back door on the drivers side of the truck…not that it was missing, it was solid from driver door back. Sad commentary on my observation skills at the time I am afraid.
After awhile, I noticed a shimmy when driving over 40mph and drove it for weeks like that (luckily on only minor roads it turns out). When the gaping hole under the driver side floor mat got big enough, I brought it in to my mechanic. He put it on a lift, called me in and pointed at the drive shaft dangling by a rusted out O rig bracket which held the shaft in place.
Fixed that issue and was amazed at the ride quality improvement without much consideration for how close to mayhem I had been with the wobbly drive shaft (one good pot hole, of which there were many on my 40+mph stretches) could have started/ended my day on a sour note.
Eventually fixed the floor boards and sold the truck to my ex-brother in law and upgraded eventually up to a Cordoba, with white leather seats and a trunk that could fit a beer keg in the trunk (which I was informed of by my sister after I sold it to her and she brought it to her future husband’s rugby matches…she was a very popular member of that group for those years).
Many varied vehicles over the years until finally settling into the only new truck I ever owned, a 2004 Silverado 2500HD which I drove until a year ago (but is still doing farm work after I sold it to a local farm owner with 260K+ miles on it and it now hauls cows instead of horses). I now drive a newer/low mileage 4-cylinder tin can GMC pickup as I no longer need to haul larger horses and I thought would get much better mileage than 12MPG (not much though because the little thing strains on hills my old 8cyclinder practically idled up at speed). I do miss the power and the ride which was great for a truck (the Silverado, not the C-10).
I’ve had some beauts over the years but like my women, I have sometimes stayed too long or pulled the trigger on dumping them too soon but I have had good luck over all (which ain’t bad for a guy with no mechanical abilities and little/no charm).
1978 Mustang II which I bought for $800. The timing belt broke as I drove it home.
So your saying it was a lemon as yellow as that stripe on your profile thingy?
It sucked and got suckier as it aged, but I can’t call it a lemon because I knew it sucked when I bought it. The “new” car that replaced it truly was a lemon because it had been damaged and the dealer knew it but hid it.
Got a lawyer, got a new replacement without going to court.
1973 Buick Regal….had a moonroof too.
Did it ever leak and black mold build up inside?!
1972 Triumph TR-6. $1500. 104 HP out of a 152 CI straight 6. Dual side-draft stromberg 2 barrel carbs. Wire wheels. Top speed at red-line in 4th gear was 100 MPH. Painted Jasmine (which people who tried guessing the color called yellow, gold, and green – all of those colors were part of the paint mix). I bought it in 1980.
None of the OEM Lucas gauges worked, only the Smiths gauges previous owners put in it worked. In the 2 years I owned it, the odometer only turned 9 miles (I commuted to college with it for months – 33.2 miles each way). The starter failed – twice. The alternator failed once. Of the 4 locks on the car, only the “cubby box” one worked. The boot latch didn’t work (the boot would bounce open over bumps). The heater never worked. It was prone to gas line freezing in the winter (the only car I’ve had do that in my life, out of 17 cars I’ve owned). The throttle cable would freeze in place in the winter (I’d have to put my toe behind the throttle pedal and pull back on it to keep the engine from over speeding during shifts). The passenger door latch would malfunction in the cold and would open on left turns. The electrical portion of the ignition switch (behind the key) quit working with the key, and I’d have to use a tool to turn it to start the car. The way the wire wheels worked was there was a stub axle bolted in place where a steel wheel would be attached. It had grooves and splines on its outer surface. Inside the wheel hub were matching grooves and splines to keep the axle and wheel moving together. Did you know those could wear out? I found out when the left front wheel fell off while I was driving it. I’d hit the brakes, heard a loud thrumming noise from the left-front. The next two brake applications were silent like normal, so I figured that something must have gotten between the pad and disk, and then fallen out. Then I made a right turn, and the wheel went bouncing off into the distance as the left front frame slammed into the ground and stopped the car. The oil filter was a can and element type, and located such that it took me 2 hours to change it. I only changed it once. It burned oil fast enough that I was essentially changing the oil every 3 months just keeping it topped off.
Car was an absolute dog, and Triumph deserved the death it got in the early 1980s.
But my best friend from high school loved it. Why? Because I think every girl he knew rode on his lap in it at least once. The clutch was a sprung clutch, and I could use the throttle to compress and expand the clutch’s spring which resulted in a strong oscillation of the cars motion which essentially meant he got to dry-hump her ass through their clothes. I always blamed such surges on “bad gasoline”. I did this every time he had a girl on his lap, and multiple times per event. Several of them rode on his lap several times, so either they liked it, or they believed my excuse.
That thing was street legal in that condition?
My brother had a TR-6. Isn’t this the one where the hard-top fits neatly into the trunk when you want to drive it with no top?
Off to the side—your car has a boot. May I ask where you’re from, originally?
My first car was a 1966 Rambler Classic 550 with fold down front seats. Lost my cherry in that car. I paid 99.00 dollars for it in 1972, but my Father picked it out. Next car was a 1967 Mercury Cougar, my father gave it to me on my birthday, and them handed me the payment book. It was in his name, so when I went to boot camp, he sold it for liquor money. I was really disappointed when I came home on leave to pick it up. The next car I had after that was on the island of Okinawa. I don’t remember the year it was, but it was a Honda mini car. Powered by a 350cc motorcycle engine. The 4 speed shifter was mounted on the dashboard in an H pattern. Had about 12 foot turning radius, and could maneuver anywhere. How stupid / fearless we were in our youth!
My dad had a Cougar — not sure what year. Headlights that hid behind metal eyelids. I’d sit in it and pretend to drive — gear shift was straight. One had to push in a little button on the left of a T-shaped shifter to move it. Even the ashtray had a little garage door.